Furthermore, caretakers face the constant possibility that the terms of remuneration will be changed to their detriment. True, caretakers can leave if they want to; but usually they don’t because no alternative opportunities are available—and what could their offspring inherit? This combination of factors is especially serious in aquaculture where technical requirements need managerial flexibility. In the Philippines production methods customary in aquaculture are already inefficient. Tenure security without any other organizational changes is likely to fossilize these methods even more. Furthermore, although the reform was supposed to protect the rights of tenants, it has actually galvanized tension between those who own and those who operate, and in this respect lowered the security of caretakers. Particularly on large-scale farms conflict, which was previously muted, is now open. One reaction by landlords of subsistence cropland to the threat of land reform during the 1960s and 1970s was to mechanize. By this means they hoped not only to lower labor requirements but also to replace share tenants with seasonal wage labor. Mechanization of aquaculture has not progressed sufficiently to replace much labor. But there is a definite trend to replace share tenants with wage labor, a trend which is now reinforced by provisions of the Land Reform Code. Instead of protecting share tenancy in aquaculture, the introduction of legal tenancy security has speeded its eventual demise. A solution is not easy to come by—it is never easy to combine the goals of equity, security, and efficiency as many land reform programs try to do. To apply features of land reform as developed in the Philippines to aquaculture only as an afterthought will not do because it leads to more problems than solutions. To introduce the entire land reform package into aquaculture would also be inappropriate because of the special character of fishpond culture. Recently there has been a call to reformulate land reform in the Philippines into genuine agrarian reform which would involve local participation and would cover all social components of the rural population, including landless labor. Aquaculture should be part of this effort. But there is a proviso. The effort has to be sensitive to the peculiar characteristics of aquaculture compared with other rural production regimes. As conditions now stand, no reform at all would be better than the incidental extension into aquaculture of part of a program designed for subsistence agriculture. Informal rules and enforcement rules of access to common pool resources The notion that “everyone has right to survive” has limited the development of de facto rules that determine rights of access to the open sea. Small fishers expect a share of fish during a good catch by a seining boat as a matter of course; after all, they say, that boat already has a lot of fish. These exchanges are acts of generalized reciprocity and are done without fanfare both on shore and at sea. Moreover, informal rules and rights of sharing fish are part of a larger strategy that historically has developed to govern relations between capture fishers and other community members in many parts of the Philippines.
45